Wonders on the Equator

Some miracles of nature can be observed at the equator: at noon the objects do not cast shadows, the day is equal to the night all the year round, the egg will stand on the nail head, and the laws of physics act quite differently.

One can clearly see all these things visiting the museum complex “Mitta-del-Mundo”, 27 km from Quito - the capital of the Republic of Ecuador, which is located at the equator in South America. 300 years ago, an expedition of French scientists found that the equator passes exactly here and this place was called - "the land of the equator", and then the Republic of Ecuador. So Ecuador derives its name from the Equator. 

Ecuador is the world’s only country that is named after a geographical feature. There is even a monument to the equator, an imaginary line dividing the Earth into two hemispheres: the northern and southern hemispheres. The monument - as "the middle of the world” is crowned by a five-ton ball at the top, which symbolizes our planet.

But the real equator was found with the help of a GPS navigator in Intiñan not so long ago. The most amazing happens here at the open-air museum: if you set a basin with water on the red line of the equator, and open the plug - the water merges into a continuous stream.

If to move a sink literally half a meter to the northern hemisphere, the water over the drain hole twists into the funnel counterclockwise. 

For more visual effect, green leaves are thrown into the water. If to move the basin to the southern hemisphere - the water turns clockwise. Of course, from the scientific point of view, this phenomenon has an explanation, but it is so tempting to believe in a miracle and a special gravitational balance.